Some 100,000 people hit by rains, floods in Mexico and Central America – UN

14 October 2011  Some 100,000 people in Mexico and Central America are facing flooding as Hurricane Jova and a tropical depression unleash torrential rains over the region, the United Nations reported today as it activated emergency and assessment teams in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

In Mexico heavy rainfall from the hurricane has affected 50,000 people in the state of Tabasco, while nearly 43,500 others have been hit by flooding in Guatemala, where almost the entire country has been affected, with 1,700 families already losing their homes and the rains forecast to continue for the next two to three days, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a news release.

A UN emergency technical team has been activated and is in communication with authorities in Nicaragua, where nearly 5,500 people have been affected and over 1,000 houses damaged.

In El Salvador, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional arm of the UN World Health Organization (WHO), has joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in carrying out an assessment of the most crowded shelters. Over 2,200 people are already in emergency shelters.

In Honduras and Costa Rica damage has so far been limited, with some people cut off and few in emergency shelters, OCHA reported.

Flooding has also engulfed southern Haiti where UN peacekeepers have evacuated hundreds of families from their homes and placed them in temporary shelters as waters have risen after days of torrential rain.